Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Last Thursday was Bernina Club Day at the Bobbincase. I look forward to it as a fun way to spend a part of my day visiting with friends and learning from them. I am amazed at the 'show and tell' projects that people have - they always lead to some good discussion and I leave with some invaluable tips and new ideas.

The proposed project for the afternoon Embroidery Club was an 'all-in-the-hoop' tiny purse that you might use for something like loose change. I have a real love of fabric bags for packing when I travel and use bags of all sizes for all the miscellaneous things from toothbrushes to knitting projects that I seem to always tote along. The idea of making a something from start to finish in an embroidery hoop sounded interested so I came prepared to try one. I created one tiny purse during the class and went home to quickly created a second the following day.

I decided to then play with changing the size of the purse. Using my mega hoop, I enlarged the purse to a much bigger size to see what would happen. The result was fairly satisfactory, though not perfect. I found after I finished that the zipper tape was not completely anchored. I don't know if that was my fault or there is an upper limit on how much you can enlarge the purse reliably. In any event, my new scarf knitting project for an upcoming trip fits easily in the finished bag, so I consider it a success.

All-in-all though, I really enjoyed the project. It gives me some ideas for a rectangular all-in-hoop design that I would like to try and create on my own. I think that I am finally getting to a comfort level with the embroidering part of my Bernina and beginning to appreciate the versatility it provides!

3 comments:

Cute purses, Judy! I'll bet you could make one for stitching accessories, such as a 6" ruler or a measuring tape, cable needle, bodkins, small scissors, stitch markers, row counter(s), thimble(s)... :-)

Hi Lynda,It is a type of project that you can create using the embroidery modular component that is available for some machines. You basically build the item by layering the outer fabric, batting, and lining in a series of steps within the embroidering hoop that attaches to the machine and then sewing the outer edge and turning inside out. I googled something like 'all-in-thehoop' projects and found quite a few examples. It was a fun project to try. Judy